What to do before you hire a confinement lady

Your pregnancy has been coming along well and you’ve got about a month or two go to before delivery. This is an important time to give some thought about getting some assistance in the form of your own personal confinement lady. The question is, how do you know that she’s the right one for you?

In this article, we have some tips and ideas on how you can gauge the quality of the confinement lady that you are about to hire. Bear in mind, your confinement lady is a very important assistant to have to make your entry into motherhood one of the most pleasant experiences in your life.

First things first, let’s start by identifying your actual needs and requirements. From here on in, it will be easier for you to decide on what attributes are crucial and more importantly, whether your prospective confinement lady possesses them. While it may seem alright to depend on your mother or mother-in-law, there are times when it’s easier to deal with a third party.

Once you have a short list of your requirements, you can start asking the candidate pertinent questions, such as the following:

1. How many years of experience do you have as a confinement lady?
There are two things to consider here – one the one hand, the more experienced confinement lady will be more at ease and efficient at her task; while on the other hand, the younger, less-experienced candidate will have youthful enthusiasm and energy, but not the experience. Try and find a candidate who has the best balance of both experience and energy to support you when you need it most.

2. Are you able to guide new mums on the best way to handle their baby? (bathing, breastfeeding, changing diapers etc.)
In this aspect, there’s no replacement for experience. It takes a seasoned hand to be able to make light work of the aforementioned tasks, especially when you are still recovering from the strains of your delivery. So, in this aspect, always go for the candidate who will be able to guide and assist you in handling your new bundle of joy in addition to performing the other tasks.

3. Does your confinement lady also offer post-natal massages?
Most confinement ladies would have some knowledge on the common light massages that new mums need, but if you happen to find a candidate who is very skilled in this area, then you’ve certainly hit the jackpot, in a manner of speaking. Just note that this would usually come with extra charges.

4. Can you cook for me, what is included in your menu and what are the charges?
New mothers could always use more nutrition in their diet and having a confinement lady who is also able to cook healthy and delicious dishes would certainly make your motherhood experience more complete. In narrowing down your potential candidates, it wouldn’t hurt to ask for a simple sample of her cooking, if the candidate is agreeable to the idea.

5. What are your charges?
Ahh, costing. This can be the trickiest issue to cover as it can be quite hard to attach a monetary value to the heartfelt services provided by a professional confinement lady. It is very important that both parties list down their requirements and services clearly before coming to a conclusion or agreement, and it wouldn’t hurt to also factor in contingency plans in the event an unforeseen emergency arises, such as sudden travel plans etc.

In conclusion, the above questions should serve as a starting point to get you thinking about what you need during confinement from your confinement lady, and you could add on more as you go along based on feedback or information from your friends and family members. One of the ways to ease your task of selecting a confinement lady is to use CareDo’s app. With the app, you can easily narrow down candidates who have already been pre-screened by the CareDo evaluation team and enjoy better assurance of quality.